It is true that hype can ruin your enjoyment of any form of entertainment, but anticipation is a different story. I knew this was going to be good, the only question was 'how good?'
I needn't have worried. The monogatari series does a kind of maturing here, taking darker turns in terms of tone, as well as character development. New revelations about our familiar characters make them become either more tragic figures than before, or in a particular case, more disturbing.
It almost goes without saying that in terms of sound and visuals, monogatari as a whole continues to be a work of creative genius.